Song Review:: Taeyeon (Girl's Generation): Letter to Myself- Letter to Myself

• Release date: 2024 November 18

• Album tracklist: Letter To Myself, Hot Mess, Blue Eyes, Strangers, Blue, Disaster

• Album runtime: 18 minutes

 I love it when older artists release things. While the untried pups are still working on finding their sound and figuring out how things work, which, I love watching the growing confidence and skill, the older artists have it down pat, especially the very experienced older artists, and a member of a second generation girl group definitely qualifies for that. Does that mean my expectations are higher? Yes. But I also trust she'll excel regardless because she wouldn't have made it seventeen years in a very fickle industry if she couldn't. Also, I just learned that apparently she was the first member of the group to go solo, which is cool.

The run time is just short of 18 minutes, and it would have made it if the second song was two-and-three-quarters minutes.

The build of energy over the course of the song is masterful. Starting with slow and smooth and plucked strings, along with the respirator percussion that I love hearing, only to explode in powerful triumph by the end of the song was incredible. I don't recognize any of the names in the credits, but they did a good job. 

She unleashes her vibrato with unrestrained belting at the end of the song. I know I spend a lot of time harping about vibrato, and part of it is because my own is either nonexistent or so faint that you can't tell it exists and that frustrates me to no end, but that to me is the mark of a singer meant to sing. Controlling vibrato, both where it gets used and how much, is a skill much like any other, but I worry that the younger artists have been trained to restrain theirs so much because the music they're releasing doesn't allow for any that they have difficulty using it in places where it would be appropriate. Taeyeon is, as expected, skilled in knowing where and when to let her vibrato go, that or she has a very good producer who knows. Either way, she has the skill to actually do it. 

I was enjoying the retro, 1970s look to the music video until I got a look at Taeyeon's boots and then I was thoroughly distracted because, wow, those are some soles they've got. But the message of the music video and the song are one: sometimes kindness is acknowledging that parts that you can work on and sometimes it's giving yourself the grace to make mistakes, because you wouldn't be where you are without your past self. It's really a beautiful song, and I hope people can find the hope and joy in it to give a hug to your younger self, who certainly needs one.